Dear visitor,
Write and cherish letters again
Email almost destroyed the art of letter writing — but never replaced it. It's so cheap to move words, inboxes are now a black hole of spam and single sentence work emails. I still remember a time – before scammers and companies captured my email – when receieving a personal email from across the world felt miraculous.
Spam isn't the only problem. Email works best when we don't add form to the content. But form was central to the art of letters. The feeling of holding a delicate object in your hand; the weight of the paper; the choice of ink; the amount of whitespace — these cues could carry as much meaning as the words.
And what about the spaces where we once read our letters? The cosy chair by the window; the familiar writing desk, the stationary just as you left it. Instead, email asks us to read our most valued correspondence in a sterile virtual office, alongside a stack of ads and work demands.
For all this drudgery, we pay for modern email by letting our providers scan our private messages.
Back to the future
Tidings offers a more attentive way to write to the people you care about — a focused place to think about what you want to say, a calm space to read the replies, and a modern letterbox to keep these exchanges safe.
Everything written on tidings is private. We can't read your letters even if we wanted to; the unique key to decrypt them never has to leave your device. (I store mine in my phone's photo reel so it syncs between my devices, but you don't have to.)
You can add a personal touch to your letters, choosing the right colors or typeface to suit your words. You can also add lo-fi images: not high enough quality to turn tidings into another photo sharing app, but just enough to colour your words.
Fair and honestly priced
When you send a tidings letter, we affix a virtual storage stamp. These stamps guarantee that we’ll keep your letters secure for five years at a time. They’re sold in books of 100 for $10. Unused stamps never expire, and we’ll never keep your data hostage: you can download your letters at any time to keep on your computer.
Have a play with tidings with ten shorter storage stamps, no payment or personal details required.
On trust, show, don't tell
Any company that invites you to write down your most personal thoughts should not be taken at their word. To demonstrate that we can't read your letters and how we're keeping your data safe, we keep our source code open. Anybody can self-host or audit tidings.
We're an Irish company on EU infrastructure, so we have some of the best legal protections in the world for your data.
Get in touch with any feedback, we'd love to hear from you.
Happy writing,